AFRICA: Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, who has been dogged by reports of poor health, has returned to Luanda after nearly a month in Spain.

AMERICAS: Venezuelan opposition leader Henrique Capriles was tear-gassed during a protest in the capital, Caracas.

ASIA: In the Philippines, militants who have laid siege to the southern city of Marawi are aiming to establish a regional branch of the Islamic State group, the Philippine military said.

EUROPE: Deputy FM Sergei Ryabkov said Moscow was concerned that contacts with the US Trump administration had not yet led to positive shifts in the relations between the two nations.

MIDDLE EAST: Nighttime and early morning car bombings in Baghdad killed at least 31, one of which was claimed by the Islamic State jihadist group.

TECHNOLOGY: The EU will provide free internet access in thousands of cities and towns across Europe by 2020.

TOP STORY

Panama: Former dictator Manuel Noriega dies.

Manuel Noriega, ex-Panamanian military dictator ousted by a US invasion, died at age 83.

Noriega had been in intensive care since 07MAR after complications developed from surgery to remove what his lawyer described as a benign brain tumor.

Panamanian President Juan Carlos Varela announced the death on Twitter, saying that the passing closes a chapter in the country’s history.

A strong supporter of the US in Washington’s attempts to battle the influence of communism in central America, Noriega was eventually imprisoned for drug trafficking and money laundering.

Noriega was trained at the notorious US-run School of the Americas, whose graduates include the disgraced former Peruvian spy chief Vladimiro Montesinos and the former Argentinian dictator Leopoldo Galtieri.